In recent years, the shortening of developing time has been sought in a silver halide photographic material having an improved drying property after development processing.
A method to improve the drying property to shorten drying time results in shortening of developing time and includes reducing the binder amount contained in a silver halide photographic material. However, this method may result in problems such as the reduction of the dynamic strength of a silver halide photographic material, blackening of a scratch and the generation of roller marks.
The blackening of a scratch is a phenomenon that if the surface of the film is rubbed in handling the silver halide photographic material before subjecting it to development processing, then this rubbed portion is scratchwise blackened after the development processing. The generation of roller marks occurs if pressure is exerted on the silver halide photographic material by rollers which have fine irregularities during automatic development processing which generates a black spotwise density unevenness.
Both the blackened scratches and roller marks markedly deteriorate the commercial value of the silver halide photographic material.
Another method for improving the drying property is to increase the amount of hardener added to the silver halide photographic material. In this method, swelling of the silver halide photographic material during development processing is lowered, so that the drying property is improved.
However, this method causes problems such as lowering of sensitivity due to delayed development, reduction of covering power, residual silver due to delayed fixing, and residual color, so that the drying property can not be sufficiently improved.
Another method, where a silver halide photographic material comprising a silver halide emulsion layer provided only on one side of a support (hereinafter referred to as a single-sided light-sensitive material) is used, includes removing a light-insensitive hydrophilic colloid layer provided on the backside of the support or replacing a binder contained in a light-insensitive layer provided on the backside of the support with a hydrophobic binder to thereby improve the drying property. However, this method causes curling of the silver halide photographic material and notably deterioration and, therefore, is not suitable for practical use.
Also, the reduction of the amount of binder contained in a silver halide photographic material results in deterioration of the pin hole property of the silver halide photographic material. This pin hole is known as a starry night and occurs when a small white spot is formed on an image of the silver halide photographic material after development processing, which lowers the practical value of the silver halide photographic material to a large extent. The pin hole apparently occurs when an agglomerate of a matting agent or matting agent particles having a particularly large particle size added to the silver halide photographic material push away the silver halide grains contained in an emulsion layer.
Further, occurrence of the pin hole may be caused by dust. A pin hole attributable to dust of this type occurs when the silver halide photographic material is exposed through a silver halide photographic material which contains dust where traces of dust remain as white spots. Overall, the pin hole is a serious problem for printing photographic material and considerable labor is spent to improve this occurrence.
A method in which a surface active agent is added to a silver halide photographic material to improve the electrification property can be used to improve the pin hole property. However, this method is not sufficient because the improvement is not significant and the improvement of the electrification property is lost after development processing. Consequently, if improvement of the electrification property is not demonstrated, dust would not be prevented from sticking to a manuscript film (a film after development processing) and the pin hole property would not be improved.